Filling the Footsteps of a Giant: Chris Klieman’s Sustained Success Following Bill Snyder’s Legendary Run -

By Bob Trollsby from the Cocaine Willie Podcast

After a tumultuous 2018 season, a legend was finally stepping away from the podium for the final time. The Kansas State Wildcats football team had just finished a gut-wrenching 42-38 loss in Ames against Iowa State—their first loss against the Cyclones in Farmageddon since 2007—in a game that capped off a season filled with uncertainty, controversy, and unrealized expectations.

Coach Bill Snyder, in his 27th season at the helm, was never well-known for being a media darling but had moments in that season where he would quip back to reporters in pressers to “write what the hell you want to write” when pressed about who would be starting at QB between Skylar Thompson and Alex Delton.

After all, what need did he have to endear himself to the media? He had taken “Futility U” from the doldrums of becoming a Division II program to being a couple of plays away from a national title appearance twice. He had 14 seasons with 9 wins or more and had been to 19 bowl appearances in his 27 seasons. When the Big Eight merged with the Southwest Conference in 1996, Snyder began a stretch of winning 11 games in 6 of the first 8 seasons of the new Big 12 Conference’s existence. Bear in mind, this was in a day and age where Nebraska had 3 national titles, and teams like Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, and Oklahoma had Heisman winners and finalists year in and year out.

Coming out of a brief stint in retirement, Snyder had returned in 2009 to “calm the waters” and restore K-State to the heights they’d seen during his first tenure as head man in Manhattan. That second stint saw two 10+ win seasons, two NY6-equivalent bowl appearances, and after a while, it felt like Snyder was the only man who could win at Kansas State.

On a sunny but cold December day in 2018, a plane took off from Fargo, North Dakota, and made its way down to the Little Apple. On board the flight was a man who had come off the heels of 4 FCS national titles as the head coach of the FCS North Dakota State Bison. Chris Klieman, a good friend and former colleague at NDSU of K-State’s Athletics Director, Gene Taylor, was hired and introduced to the press and boosters of K-State on December 10, 2018. Klieman had been hired knowing he had a tremendous pedigree of success at the FCS level, but questions about his ability to succeed at the Power-5 level surfaced immediately after his hiring due to the lack of success of others who had made the same jump in the past. Klieman was ready to prove them wrong, touting his mantra of “football is football” and “win the dang day.”

Year 1 would prove to be a good one, and Klieman took the Wildcats from a 5-7 campaign under Snyder’s last season to an 8-4 year with marquee wins over No. 5 Oklahoma, No. 23 Iowa State, and a non-conference SEC road win against Mississippi State. The team and coaching staff rallied around QB Skylar Thompson, a task that Klieman’s predecessor seemed hesitant to do. And in a new day and age where the transfer portal was becoming more and more prevalent, Klieman was dead-set on taking advantage of opportunities where seasoned players wanted to earn a chance to compete for a conference title.

Although they lost in their bowl game to a salty Navy squad in the Liberty Bowl, Klieman was poised and ready to continue to prove his worth at the P5 level, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The 2020 season marks the low-point for Klieman in his tenure at K-State to date, and the roster was decimated for much of the 10-game season. The year kicked off with a 31-35 loss to FCS Arkansas State, and although they beat No. 3 Oklahoma 38-35 for a second consecutive year, the team finished with a 4-6 record and failed to compete in a bowl game.

This lackluster performance forced Klieman to look inward and ensure the culture and roster he was building was not only a roster of good, developmental talent but a roster that fit in culturally with his four core values of Discipline, Commitment, Toughness, and Be Selfless. A mass exodus ensued in the portal, and Klieman reloaded with a number of players from the transfer portal. For a final year rallied around Skylar Thompson at QB, who had a colorful injury history through the 2020 and 2021 seasons, and the prolific Deuce Vaughn at RB, K-State finished 7-5, but capped off their season with a 42-20 bowl win against LSU in the Texas Bowl, carrying some incredibly positive momentum into the 2022 season.

The 2022 season would become one for the history books. Skylar Thompson had graduated, and Will Howard, the backup QB who filled in during so much of Thompson’s injury issues, was recruited over for Adrian Martinez of Nebraska. Expectations for Martinez were fairly high, and despite an early loss to a Tulane team who would eventually go on to beat Caleb Williams and USC in the Cotton Bowl, he came in and dazzled early on, capturing wins against old Big Eight rival Missouri 40-12 and winning a thrilling 41-34 game on the road at No. 6 Oklahoma.

Shortly thereafter, Adrian Martinez got injured, and Will Howard came in yet again. They would eventually lose to the soon-to-be CFP-bound TCU Horned Frogs in a back-and-forth 28-38 loss in Fort Worth, but Will Howard’s poise and ability to make throws into tight windows proved to be something fans had not seen from him in previous seasons in relief duty. The next week, Will Howard pitched a 48-0 shutout against No. 9 Oklahoma State, and went 3-1 in the final 4 games of the season, securing them a spot in Arlington at the Big 12 championship against that same TCU Horned Frog team they had faced about six weeks earlier. In a dazzling overtime finish, K-State capped off their season with a goal-line stand to win the Big 12 championship over a team who would go on to play in a national title game.

K-State finished 10-4, and although they lost to Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide in the Sugar Bowl, Will Howard, Deuce Vaughn, Malik Knowles, and Felix Anudike-Uzomah had won the hearts and minds of the K-State faithful. Chris Klieman had proven that football truly is football, and the ability to sustain success at the P5 level regardless of where you had coached previously was possible. 2023 took a lot of that same success and built on it. Despite losing a lot of talent from the Big 12 championship team’s roster, they reloaded and went on to win 8 games yet again, and finished the season with an elite performance from Freshman QB Avery Johnson.

As the world of college football continues to evolve, Chris Klieman has proven that you can adapt to changing times, and has also proven that Bill Snyder was not the only individual who could win at Kansas State. Being able to capitalize on both the transfer portal and NIL, paired with developing players with raw talent and a lot of potential, can win you conference championships. 8 wins is the floor of this program outside of a year with a global pandemic, and it’s clear that K-State is set up for future success under Klieman’s leadership.